Promising Day
by Eugenee
Summary: Lucy had high hopes for the day and as usual Natsu would be the one to deliver. One-shot for Nalu week.


**Another little contribution to Nalu week, enjoy! **

Promise

What the hell had happened to her promising day? Lucy Heartfilia found herself asking. When she had woken up that morning she had felt refreshed and rearing to go and coupled with the feeling that something good would be happening today, she had had high hopes.

Initially it was going to be a relaxing day off but of course it didn't take long for Natsu and Happy to come barging in brandishing a request sheet. She'd been in such a good mood that she didn't even wail at them, instead she said good morning and offered them some breakfast. They had both looked at her surprised and sceptically but then neither of them were the type to look a gift horse in the mouth and accepted her offer heartily.

The request had been a fairly simple one, search for a missing item, she was surprised Natsu had picked this kind mission since there was no mention of fighting but she wasn't about to question it, these kind of simple missions they rarely went on.

The reward wasn't too bad either.

And since she had been in such a good mood she had agreed to walk to their destination which fortunately was only a town over.

But where had that promise of a good day gone, she wandered as she sifted through pools of muddy water. The client had been less then helpful... they'd been walking in the woods one afternoon and slipped on the river bank, and a family heirloom, a ring, had come off and fallen into the murky water.

Of course they hadn't wanted to do the dirty work themselves and had figured that Fairy Tail would have some fancy magic that would help them find a lost ring, which of course they didn't have but a mission was a mission and they never backed out... so here they were knee deep in filthy water looking for a tiny object they'd probably never find.

It didn't help that the river was several miles long and the client couldn't quite remember how far along they were when they slipped.

It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

She grumbled and moaned as she dug through filth and mud, searching blindly for a ring they didn't even have a description of. She was appalled that her new skirt was getting dirty and shivers of disgust ran through her as mud and grit coated her fingernails... she'd be washing mud and Mavis knows what else out of her pores for weeks to come.

She was fairly certain that on several occasions she'd felt something slimy brush past her legs.

This wasn't how she had envisioned her day.

'Lucy's slacking Natsu!' Happy yelled from the trees above them. She gritted her teeth and threw the blue exceed a glare.

'I don't want to hear that from you, why aren't you down here helping?' She growled up.

'Because I'm a cat.' He responded promptly and with a straight face.

'Yeah Luce,' Natsu chimed in, 'cat's don't like water.' He was looking at her in that way that made her feel like she'd said something stupid. 'And anyways this is pretty fun, I don't see why you're complaining.' He shrugged.

'How is this fun,' She all but yelled, 'we've been wading through filthy water, which is probably riddled with all kinds of parasites and insects, for hours, my back hurts, my new skirt is ruined and ... and this wasn't how I wanted my day to be!'

'It's not that bad...' He mumbled. 'I found a pretty neat bug,' He grinned turning around to face her. 'Wanna see?' He thrust his hand up in her face and there between his fingers was a gigantic centipede wriggling around for dear life.

Naturally she found herself reeling back, a squeal of disgust escaping her before a cry of panic when she realised her foot connected with something and she was falling backwards. Natsu dropped the bug and lunged forwards but it was too late. She fell into the water and only just managed to stop herself from being completely submerged.

She was going to cry, she was sure of it, there was only so much of this a girl could take and now with the casualty of her new skirt and favourite top she was at breaking point but of course Natsu just had to push her over the edge when he burst out laughing, along with Happy, who had flown down and was now floating above them.

Her hand twitched in the mud as she watched Natsu keel over laughing, clutching his abdomen and pointing down at her and before she knew what she was doing she grasped a pile of mud in her fist and flung it directly at Natsu. To her delight it landed dead centre of his face, his laughter ceased almost instantly and he blinked through the mud at her, shocked, and then quickly replaced with mild annoyance.

'That wasn't very nice Lucy.' He said slowly, he lowered down into the water, reaching for the river bed. Her moment of glee soon turned south and apprehension rose to take its place.

'You shouldn't have laughed at me.' She argued, only she didn't sound very convincing when her voice shook.

Before she could stagger up and run away a dollop of mud landed on her chest with enough force to splatter across her torso, covering her neck and strands of her hair. She gasped, naturally, and looked down at the damage.

She could feel the icky substance trail down her cleavage and once again she shivered in disgust.

'Now it's on.' She growled before chucking another clump at him, followed very quickly by a third. His eyes widened before he narrowly dodged the first but got hit in the chest by the second and in retaliation he splashed her with water, she gasped and quickly stood up to retreat but kicked back dowsing him in the same grunge.

'You're playing with fire Lucy.' He grinned darkly as he approached her with hands full of dirt, she turned to run but he was too fast and caught her around the waist; he smothered her hair with the evil slime. She squealed and kicked out of his grasp. She darted left and scooped up mud from the river bank; she turned and chucked blindly hoping that she had hit him.

'Ouch...' Was all she heard. She peeked at him, watching as he pulled something out of the slop that was sliding down his head and held it up in front of him, it took them both a moment to realise what they were looking at.

'No way, we found it!' Lucy ran back to Natsu and snatched the little gemmed ring from between his fingers. 'What Luck.' She found herself grinning for the first time in hours. Natsu returned the grin, their mud fight all but forgotten as they both desperately climbed out of the river. She clutched the ring for dear life, not wanting to have to search for the blasted thing again, she was so happy for this mission to be over that she could over look the fact she was covered in mud and slime.

'Let's get back to the client before it gets too late,' Natsu suggested, 'we'll probably have to find a place to stay tonight as well, it took a lot longer than I thought it would.'

She followed Natsu through the woods, trusting his sense of direction and nose to lead them towards the town and when she started to hear the sound of life she made a dash towards the edge of the woods, she broke through with Natsu and Happy following close behind.

Already she could imagine how fantastic her first shower was going to be.

They made quick work of meeting the client and handing over their precious ring in exchange for the full payment – since there wasn't anything they could really damage – and finding the only inn in the village, they'd received odd looks but by this point she no longer cared, accepting the one room with two single beds, she placed down a deposit and the moment the room was booked Natsu was dashing towards the exit saying there was something he needed to do as soon as possible.

Lucy had simply shrugged, the call of the hot, warm and clean water was too much for her to ignore so she ran up to their room and was stripping her clothes before she even made it to the bathroom.

Once she was settled under the hot water she sighed a breath of relief and melted under the scolding stream, just letting it pour over her, washing away the day's stresses and filth. Once she felt like her clean self again she reasoned that though the day hadn't held as much promise as she thought this morning, it could have been worse, there could have been fighting, they could have destroyed something and not gotten paid again.

And although she abhorred getting dirty the mud fight was kind of, a little bit, fun.

She stepped out and reached for the fluffy white towel, once it was firmly in place she stepped out to be greeted by a very filthy dragon slayer and his grinning companion.

'Both of you go shower before you think of doing anything else, you both reek of that river.' Happy's grin dropped but Natsu just shrugged and stalked off to the bathroom and once the door shut behind him Lucy made tracks with drying off and putting on fresh clothes that she had stashed in Natsu's pack for emergencies such as this.

She just finished putting on her shorts when Natsu burst out of the bathroom looking far cleaner and stinking less of muddy water. She sunk into her bed and stretched like a cat, relishing in the softness of the comforter.

Considering it had only been a search request she was exhausted but before she could get too sleepy though she remembered Natsu's dash from the inn and turned her sleepy eyes over to Natsu who was hanging up his now clean scarf on the rail in front of the fire.

'Natsu?'

'Hmm?'

'What did you need to go into town for?'

He looked over at her with a cocked brow before understanding dawned and his trademark grin materialized.

'Oh that!' He jumped up and over to his pants, he ruffled the material around a little until something oblong fell out in his hand. 'There was something I'd been wanting to get, I just needed a few more jewels.' He came over and sat on the end of her bed, she sat up, intrigued. 'It's one of the reason I picked this mission cause it was in the same village as the shop and would save me a trip.' He then held out the box towards Lucy who hesitantly took it. She kept her eyes trained on his face before slowly looking down at the felt box in her hand.

'What is it?' She asked.

'Open it... it's for you.'

'For me?' She was surprised to say the least, it wasn't her birthday and there weren't any events coming up that she knew about, she mentally checked off any anniversaries but she drew blank, there was no reason for this present.

Looking back to the box she unclipped the latch and inched it open, she peeked inside and gasped.

There, lay delicately in velvet, was a silver key.

'Natsu...' She breathed. 'Why...?' The dragon slayer looked away, bashful, there was a light tint of pink coating his cheeks which she found was too cute.

'I know what happened back with Tartarus... what you had to do to save us... and I know that it could never replace Aquarius but I thought that maybe a new friend would help heal you... or something like that.'

'Oh Natsu...'

'I don't know much about it but the guy said that it opens the gate to a spirit called... um... what was it again,' He scratched his head in thought, his face lit up when he remembered. 'Sylph!' Her eyes widened and she looked back to the key now clutched in her palm.

She knew of this spirit, it was a high level silver key capable of healing and providing support, kind of like Wendy's magic, except Wendy's was far more powerful. This key could help her support her friends in battle and if Wendy wasn't about or she needed help, Sylph could aid her or heal for her.

This must have cost him a lot.

'You've been sad, you smile and act like you're okay but I've seen you Luce... your heart got broken and I couldn't think of any other way if mending it,' he ruffled his hair, embarrassed. 'Until I found that key, I figured it would cheer you up, even if it's just a little bit.'

She didn't know what to say, so much could be said but she could find the right words to express what she was feeling right then in that moment so she did the next best thing. She jumped forwards and wrapped her arms around Natsu in a surprise hug, the key still clutched tightly in her hand.

She buried her face in his neck and felt the threat of tears but for once she didn't mind them this time because she was so deliriously happy. Slowly he returned the hug, a gentle hand rubbing up and down her back as she sobbed silently.

'Thank you... you have no idea how much this means to me.' She muttered.

'I think I've got some idea of how much.' He chuckled.

'I miss her.' She whimpered.

'I know but she's not gone, she's still with the other spirits, watching over you through them and despite the fact she was a mean old lady with a really scary temper I know she really cared for you.' He reassured her, running a hand down her hair, soothing her.

He took hold of her shoulders and pushed her back far enough that he could look her in the eyes.

'Lucy, I promise, you'll never have to make a sacrifice like that again, not for me.'

'You can't promise that.' She sniffed.

'Yes I can, I'll become stronger, I won't get caught unaware like that again.' He argued but she was already shaking her head.

'No Nastu, you can't make that kind of promise because I'd do anything for you, you're my beloved partner after all.' She offered him a watery smile and he gazed at her mutely before a slow tender smile crept up.

'Then instead I promise that we'll go on loads of adventures and we'll both grow stronger together, I have your back and you've got mine.' He inched closer and rested his forehead against hers, her smile widened and she nodded her head gently and before she lost her nerve she pecked him gently on the lips, she giggled at the way his eyes bulged comically and his mouth fell open in shock, and she thought it was completely adorable the way his entire face turned red.

Smiling, she fell back on to the bed and curled up on her side, her new key and soon to be friend clutched tightly in her hand and pressed against her chest.

'Good night Natsu.' She said before letting her eyes drift closed. Before falling asleep she felt him move, pull the covers over her form and stumbled over to his bed where she heard the creak of him landing roughly, she peeked an eyes open to see him covering his red face with his hands and almost giggled when she heard him utter 'Geez Luce you weirdo... your weirdness must be contagious or something.'

For the first time in a awhile she fell asleep with a smile on her face.


End file.
